


Close-Hauled and Near to Hand

by onstraysod



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Body Worship, M/M, Nudity, One Shot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Sketching, Titanic References, most particularly the big 'S', multiple violations of the Articles, the boys make the most of their free time, this isn't what the Admiralty intended, when they made midshipmen study drawing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 13:46:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18624472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onstraysod/pseuds/onstraysod
Summary: He sketches Thomas whenever he can, capturing the steward's likeness as he works or sleeps. But Jopson has a new and more provocative pose in mind.





	Close-Hauled and Near to Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lafiametta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/gifts).



> This is all lafiametta's fault; I bear no responsibility. She invoked _Titanic_ and here we are.

It was late, the captain and other officers having long since retired, but Edward Little remained awake, sitting at his narrow writing desk in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, sketchbook in hand. The portrait beneath the lead tip of his pencil was nearly done, just needing here and there a thicker line, a smudge of shadow. He paused once, wondering if he should add some shading along the jawline to represent the stubble that now darkened the skin of cheeks and chin, but his subject was so fastidious about shaving that such an addition seemed slightly unjust. As Edward weighed the pros and cons, artistic merit versus the subject’s own preferences, he lapsed into a reverie about the soft scrape of that stubble against his palm or stomach or - vivid in his mind for having happened recently - the inside of his thigh. It took an effort to recover himself before such pleasant memories took a noticeable physical toll.

With a few more dashed lines, he laid both pencil and sketchbook down and stretched to work out the tension in his arms. Thomas Jopson, seated on the bunk with a sewing box in his lap, looked up from his darning and smiled.

“Finished?”

“For now.” Edward rolled his shoulders, then kneaded at the back of his neck with one hand. “I’m not happy with it.”

“You always say that.” Closing the lid of the sewing box, Thomas slipped off the bunk, laying his work on the desk beside the sketchbook. “May I look?”

“It’s a poor likeness.”

“It’s no such thing.” The steward stared at the sketch of his face in profile, thick lock of hair hanging down over the right side of his brow, eyelids half lowered over a gaze fixed downwards on his mending. “Edward, you have a gift.”

The lieutenant laughed. “I don’t know about that. There’s more I’d like to add but I don’t seem to have the skill to execute it.” He took the book from Thomas’s hand but kept his eyes focused on the steward’s face. “The way the slope of your nose curves slightly at the tip. The way the lamplight shines on your hair. I’ve not captured either adequately. I wish I could.”

“I think it’s a beautiful sketch, given the dullness of the subject.”

Edward reached out and took Thomas’s hand. Though Thomas still wore his fingerless mittens, Edward’s hands were bare, and he relished the simple sensation of Thomas’s bare fingertips sliding against his palm. “You are anything but dull.”

Rosy blooms deepened on the apple of both Thomas’s cheeks. Edward had become a student of that blush and knew that it arose from cold or heat, depending on the temperature of the room, combined with pleasure or embarrassment, depending on the situation. At that moment he guessed it was caused by pleasure and - for a change - heat, for the month of August had brought them the highest temperatures they’d experienced since the beginning of the expedition. That very afternoon the mercury had risen to a balmy thirty-nine, and Edward’s cabin that night felt unusually close and stuffy.

“But surely you’re wishing for a different subject,” Thomas continued, leaning against the desk, letting Edward continue to hold and caress his hand. “Or at least a different pose. I’m either sewing or sleeping in every sketch you’ve made of me.”

“You’re never still enough otherwise.” Edward pushed the rolled-up cuff of Thomas’s striped sleeve further up his arm and brought his wrist to his mouth. It was a strong wrist, tendons thickened by hours of careful work with needle and thread, the skin darkened by a profusion of black hairs. Parting his lips, Edward sucked at the throbbing vein beneath the heel of Thomas’s thumb, the pulsing rhythm of blood echoing deep in his groin. “I have to take whatever opportunity I can.”

Thomas threaded the fingers of his free hand slowly through the lieutenant’s hair, pushing an untamed lock behind one ear. “I should sit for you properly for once. I could do so now if you’d like, unless your hand is sore from holding the pencil.” He pulled his wrist away and took Edward’s right hand in both his own, returning the other man’s gaze as he began to massage his palm. 

“It’s somewhat stiff, but that will ease quickly enough.” Edward watched, hypnotized, as Thomas’s thumbs pushed gentle circles into his flesh and he wished he might have held the pencil between his thighs instead. Pausing with the massage, Thomas leaned over and pressed a series of kisses to the inside of his fingers, and a sensation like the first swell of the sea beneath a midshipman’s feet spiraled through Edward’s body. “I could spend every hour of the day sketching your portrait, Thomas. Gives me a reason to stare at you.”

Though hanging his head with the bashful modesty that never failed to set Edward alight, Thomas’s eyes betrayed him, sparkling like a sun-dappled sea. “You stare enough, at every meal. The others don’t notice, you hide it well, but I see you. I can hardly keep hold of the Allsopp’s.” His gaze met Edward’s, his lips parting as if he would lean down for a kiss, but then he nodded. “Yes, I want to sit for you.”

Releasing Edward’s hand, Thomas cleared his throat and looked around the cabin. “I suppose the bunk is the only place I can--" Voice fading off, he pulled a face and pointed behind Edward with mock outrage. “What is this?”

“What is what?” Edward turned around and immediately spotted the object that had arrested Thomas’s attention. After enduring a tedious hour in the great cabin with his fellow officers, Edward had rushed back to his cabin and thrown off his dress coat, relieved to be free of the stiff formality. The garment now hung, crushed and creased, over the back of his chair.

“Oh, Edward!” Shoving him playfully aside, Thomas pulled the coat out from behind him and draped it lovingly over one arm, smoothing his hand across the thick wool. “Look at this crease in the hem! Gibson will have to press it in the morning.” He glared at Edward. “Shame on you. How did you ever make first lieutenant with such a disregard for your clothes?”

Edward shrugged, a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth: he realized he rather liked being reprimanded by his lover. “I’ve no excuse for myself, except that I was ready to get comfortable for the evening. Can you forgive me?”

The facade of anger disappeared, replaced by a dimpled smile. “Perhaps. But if you want my forgiveness, you’d better make this the best sketch of me you’ve ever done.” 

“Your wish is my command, sir.”

Still stroking the coat, Thomas stepped toward the cabinet where Edward’s clothes were stowed, then stopped abruptly, gazing thoughtfully down at the garment. He fingered the coils of gold fringe hanging from one of the epaulets, then turned back to Edward. “I wonder… Would you mind if I…?”

“You needn’t ask that. I’ve put my coat on you before.”

“Your day coat, yes. But this is your dress coat. And it’s so very fine…” Thomas lifted one of the sleeves, passing the fabric reverently through his fingers, then held the whole garment up to his face, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply at the collar. Edward’s core tightened.

“Didn’t I tell you I think Crozier will make you a lieutenant one day?” He was only partially teasing. The captain’s regard for his steward was evident to everyone, and Edward didn’t doubt that if such a promotion were in Crozier’s gift, he wouldn’t hesitate to bestow it on Thomas. Thomas, on the other hand, seemed to have no such confidence.

“And to think the men believe you to be sensible and sober.”

“Put it on,” Edward urged him, ignoring the rebuke. “I’d like to see you wearing it.”

The corner of Thomas’s mouth twitched a little. “I think… I’d like you to sketch me wearing it, if that’s alright.”

Edward was surprised into momentary silence. Whenever he’d half-jokingly brought up the subject of Crozier making him a lieutenant, Thomas had denied any interest in such a thing, far-fetched as it might be. His eagerness to be depicted in the full dress coat of a first lieutenant seemed to come out of the blue. But something about the idea made excitement prickle along Edwards’s spine. Grinning broadly, he nodded. “Yes, of course. Go on, try it on.”

Thomas hesitated, one hand resting on the buttons of his waistcoat. “Not just yet. I want to surprise you.”

“Surprise me?”

Laying the coat down on the bunk, Thomas turned back to Edward and reached for his neck cloth. “Let me take this off you.” His face was deeply flushed now, the color in his cheeks spreading in patches down his neck, and he worried his bottom lip between his teeth as he untied the knot Gibson had placed in the cloth that morning. Slipping it free of Edward’s collar, Thomas wound it around his hands, then - seeming to come to some decision - stretched it out again and laid it gently over Edward’s eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Shh. Just play along.” Edward could feel Thomas’s fingers deftly tying the cloth at the back of his head.

“I can’t draw you blindfolded, Thomas.” In truth, he probably could have: the steward’s face and form were so constant a present in Edward’s mind that the minutest details of the man’s body were etched into his memory.

“You won’t have to.” The makeshift blindfold secured, Thomas moved away from him and Edward - his sight obscured by the swath of black linen - heard him settle upon the bunk. “Just keep it on for a few moments, and I’ll tell you when to take it off.”

The unusual request had Edward’s heart falling into a faster rhythm. He had no idea what Thomas was up to, but a thrill of anticipation ran rampant along every nerve. With his sense of hearing sharpened by the blindfold, he could hear the distinct sound of fabrics chafing together as they were put on or removed, and the creak of the bunk as Thomas shifted his weight. It called to mind other occasions when their exertions had elicited similar sounds, and heat rose swiftly to the surface of his cheeks as an all-too familiar pressure in his groin made him shift uneasily on the chair.

“Thomas…”

“Another moment.” More rustling, another movement of Thomas’s body against the mattress. Then: “Alright.” The steward’s voice was oddly strained, deeper than usual and raspy at the edges of his words. “You can take it off now.”

Edward drew the neck cloth off his head and the breath he’d been about to expel caught in his throat, nearly choking him.

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.” Thomas’s eyes blazed like stars in the light of the single lamp burning on Edward’s desk. “I meant I wanted you to sketch me wearing _only_ the coat.”

Beneath the fine woolen garment with its golden epaulets, Thomas was completely naked. His clothes, Edward now saw - waistcoat and jumper, trousers and drawers, neck cloth and shirt - lay in a pile on the floor atop his discarded boots. Thomas stretched out along the bunk, reclining back against the bulkhead and Edward’s pillow, the rows of shiny buttons left undone and each half of the coat falling open to expose his body. A swath of black hair grew thick between his pectorals, thinning out as it trailed down over his stomach before widening out again at his groin: a tantalizing path that Edward followed with his gaze to where Thomas’s cock lay against a lean, muscled thigh. His mouth flooded with saliva.

It wasn’t as if any part of Thomas was a revelation. Edward had kissed and caressed and feasted his eyes upon everything the steward was now displaying. But he’d done so piece by piece, at different times, taking what could be bared during any given encounter based on the place and the temperature and the number of minutes available for exploration. Never before had it all been presented - no, _flaunted_ \- before him at once, and the effect almost made his head spin. In a heartbeat he was rigid, his cock throbbing against his trousers with the sudden influx of hot blood.

Edward started to lay his sketchbook aside and rise, hands flexing with the need to touch, but Thomas shook his head. “No, Edward. Stay where you are.” He leaned back a little more against the wall, lengthening the line of his throat, its creamy skin peppered with stubble. “Sketch me now, like this. I won’t let you touch me until you have.”

Desire was a forge that had reshaped Edward. Body and mind, he was tempered anew every day by the all-consuming heat of his attraction to Thomas, his thirst for him, his need. Each time he was in the same room with the steward, each time their eyes met, Edward’s being was bathed in fire and the man he had once been was worn away, edges he hadn’t realized were rough smoothed into silken contours that screamed for the caress of Thomas’s hands. Beneath their ministrations, Edward had felt himself begin to gleam.

To be denied that touch, and the ability to touch in return, was a frustration bordering on physical pain. He wanted to bury his face against the steward’s groin, wanted to feel Thomas’s legs wrapped around his hips, wanted to rub his swollen cock against Thomas’s chest, against his mouth, to push past those lush lips and feel Thomas’s warm wetness engulf him. Edward was a disciplined man, but this was more than he could bear.

Nonetheless, he obeyed his lover’s command, helpless as he always was to deny Thomas anything. Hands shaking as he took up the sketchbook again, Edward tried to fix the pencil between his first and second fingers. Watching him, teal-colored eyes dark with arousal, Thomas licked slowly at his bottom lip. The hot blush in his face had spread now down his throat to his chest, patches of heat betraying how excited his gambit had rendered him.

“This is torment.” The words croaked out of Edward’s mouth as he ran his pencil over the page, blocking out the main sections of Thomas’s body in unsteady lines. “I was unaware you had such a capacity for cruelty, Mr. Jopson.”

“You think this easy for me?” Thomas’s voice was breathless. “Keeping you at arm’s length? After all the months moving around you in the mess, edging behind your chair, brushing your sleeve? And all the time, aching for you to touch me but believing it would never happen?” He shook his head. “To have you this close and not have your hands on me? It’s like drowning in sight of the shore.”

“It can be easily remedied,” Edward growled. “All you need do is give me the word.”

“Not yet.” Thomas raised one arm, sliding his hand behind his head, the action causing both halves of the coat to fall wider apart. The curve of his left hip, the ladder of his ribs, and both his nipples were now exposed, and Edward swallowed down a fresh wave of thirst; he could feel the hardness of those nipples, rubbing raw against his tongue. “I’d like my portrait finished first.”

Edward could barely keep the pencil steady enough to make visible marks against the paper. “And what do you plan to do with this portrait?” he asked, sketching in Thomas’s legs. Glancing up, he noticed that what he’d already drawn would need to be amended: Thomas’s cock no longer lay placid against his thigh, but stood like a mainmast, thick and needy, awaiting a sailor’s sure touch. Edward’s own cock pulsed in sympathy and his grip on the pencil tightened.

“I’m going to make a gift of it. To a certain lieutenant of my acquaintance.” Thomas shifted, opening his thighs a little which only served to emphasize his excitement. “As a keepsake to warm him on nights when my duties keep me away from his bunk.”

“Another cruelty.” Edward raised his free hand, wiping the back of it across his brow. The skin came away glossy with sweat. “To tease him with such an image. To make him hard with no remedy for his relief.”

The corner of Thomas’s mouth quirked. “He has an able pair of hands.”

“And has used them many times in his desperation.” The pencil slashed against the paper, the drawing swimming before Edward’s eyes. He moved the sketchbook strategically on his lap, desperate for friction, but it only made his arousal more acute. “You forget, maybe, that during all those months while you were serving at the mess, the lieutenant was watching you, wanting you. Taking all that want back to his bunk at night. Believe me when I assure you that his hands were no substitute.”

“If only I’d known how he longed for me,” Thomas was staring at him, his expression soft and open, “I might have spared us both much misery.”

“What would you have done?”

“Slipped a piece of paper into his napkin ring, maybe, inviting him to my cabin. Asked the captain to order him to help me in the storeroom. Anything to have him alone, all to myself.”

“And what would you have done then?” Edward glanced up, breathing hard through parted lips, gaze locked on Thomas’s.

“Everything I’d already done, countless times in my fantasies. Touched him. Tasted the mouth that for so long had teased and tempted me. Unbuttoned all those shiny gold buttons.” He paused to swipe his tongue across his lips. “Fallen to my knees. Bent myself over a cask. Anything he desired.”

Edward rubbed his hand roughly over his eyes. “How long have you known, Thomas?” He could hear the snarl of tight-coiled frustration in his tone.

“Known what?”

“The power you have over me?”

The blush overspreading Thomas’s face made his eyes sparkle yet brighter. “I have no idea what you’re referring to, Lieutenant Little.”

“So now you add lying to your list of crimes?” Edward’s hand moved, almost of its own accord, towards the hardness tenting his trousers. The ache was as painful as it was wonderful.

“Don’t you dare touch yourself,” Thomas breathed out, and the command, the self-assurance with which it was issued, sent a thrill like liquid fire through every vein and nerve in Edward’s body. “No hand should ever touch that but mine.”

Edward groaned. “For the love of all that’s holy, Thomas. You’re murdering me.”

There was wickedness in each of Thomas’s dimples. “And now you accuse me of murder? I must be a hopeless case. Perhaps you should consider punishing me. Isn’t that what a lieutenant does?” Edward watched, transfixed, as Thomas laid his left hand on his chest, just next to his nipple. Slowly he began to trace the sharp, rosy peak with two fingertips, circling it languorously. “Mortify a man’s body to save him from becoming too steeped in sin?” He continued to caress himself and Edward, distracted by the motion, found himself unable to form a response. 

“Will you discipline me, Edward?”

“Good God, Thomas…” Edward was vaguely conscious of having made a sound somewhat between a whimper and a groan.

“If I laid myself over your knee right now, how many times would you put your hand to me? Is all my wickedness worthy of five stripes? Ten?”

Edward shook his head. The movement helped to disperse some of the fog from his mind, but did nothing to dislodge the image of Thomas’s bare arse beneath his hand. That curve of soft, pale flesh blushing at his touch. Yielding against his teeth. “I could never strike you, Thomas. Not even like that.”

“Even if I begged you to?” Thomas’s voice was quiet, his tone almost hopeful. Edward could barely breath. His need to relieve the pounding, swelling ache in his groin was growing desperate, and each word, each new image Thomas conjured, made it harder for him to maintain his self control.

“I would have your hands on me in any fashion,” the steward continued, the words tumbling out on a strained exhalation. “I long for them. You’ll never know how many times in the wardroom I stood watching your hands, the way they cupped the side of your wine glass or curled around the handle of your knife, and wished they were wrapped like that around me. To be spanked by you, Edward, would be almost as sweet as being caressed.”

Edward’s whole body shuddered. “Then let me touch you. Let me touch every inch of you, now. I’ll do anything you want me to; I’ll deny you nothing, Thomas, you know that. If you want, I’ll put you over my knee. Or I’ll put myself over yours. Just let me have you…”

The small, satisfied smirk returned to the steward’s lips, curving his cheeks. “How is my portrait progressing?”

“Lines on paper,” Edward sighed. “How can I concentrate on them when the real man lies within touching distance, not a shred of clothing on him except my coat? How am I ever to wear it again without growing hard?”

Thomas’s face glowed with heat, the high color in his cheeks mirrored in the deep blush of his erection. He wet his lips again, his breathing strained. “Do I truly stir you so, Edward?”

The humorless laugh that came out of him was half a gasp. “How can you ask me that? Can’t you see what you’ve done to me?” Setting down his pencil, Edward lifted both hands to his throat to unbutton his shirt. The heat filling him was unendurable, he was leaking against his thigh. Beads of sweat dangled from the ends of his eyelashes. “You know you do, Thomas. You know you make me wild.”

Thomas made no reply with words. Instead, he moved his free hand down his chest, slowly inching his fingertips over the smooth plane of his stomach. Edward watched, mouth hanging open on an unspoken word, as Thomas traced the line of black hair down his groin and dragged his fingers gently through the thicket at the root of his manhood.

“So many times I’ve imagined you watching me do this.” Thomas seemed unable to raise his voice above a whisper. Holding Edward’s gaze, his own eyes shining like lightning-struck bergs, he wrapped his hand around his straining cock and began to stroke. “But it was almost too much. Even in fantasy.” His breath fast and thin, Thomas let his fingers play lightly up and down his length, circling the slick, tender head before falling to tighten his grip at the base. “God, Edward,” he murmured, eyelids fluttering, increasing the speed of his motions and tilting his hips up into his grasp, “it’s a wonder I’ve survived wanting you.”

Edward palmed himself with his free hand. Pressing the lead of the pencil too hard against the paper, he broke the point off his pencil and it skittered across the cabin floor.

“Thomas… please…”

For a moment, Thomas merely stared at him, his lips moving without issuing a sound. Then he gasped and nodded, fingers stilling. “Edward…”

It was all the invitation he needed. Throwing the sketchbook upon the table, Edward tore at the buttons of his trousers. Trembling and slick with sweat, his fingers struggled to push each disk from its eyelet, frustration redoubling the intensity of his discomfort. Finally he pushed both trousers and drawers halfway down his thighs, freeing his aching erection, and he fell upon Thomas, their mouths meeting in a brusque, crushing kiss. Grasping fistfuls of Edward’s shirt in his hands, Thomas tugged it up and off Edward’s head, throwing it to the floor as Edward settled between his thighs and licked ravenously at his throat.

Thomas’s naked body was an embarrassment of riches. Edward wanted every inch of him at once, and so his hands roved madly as his mouth nipped and suckled a trail down the steward’s chest. He could hear Thomas’s heavy breaths, just beneath the percussion of his own heartbeat; he could feel the steward’s fingers raking through his hair, gently gripping and tugging as he writhed and strained beneath him. He licked at a stiff nipple, then brushed down the slight hollow in the center of Thomas’s chest with the tip of his nose, pausing to mouth at warm, bare skin, until he reached his lover’s cock. Consumed with hunger, he nuzzled his face against its hot length and Thomas gasped out, unintelligible syllables dripping with need. Edward laid his tongue against the shaft and began to lave up and down, lapping slowly and reverently, following his mouth with the tight grip of his left hand while his right clutched Thomas’s thigh for support. 

Letting his tongue drag across the weeping slit, Edward groaned and stroked harder, a ripple of pleasure reverberating through Thomas’s body and echoing in his own. As Thomas clawed at his scalp with both hands, whining and mumbling insensibly, Edward took him in his mouth, his tongue circling and stroking as he sucked at the warm flesh vibrating slightly with Thomas’s shuddering breaths. His lover tasted as good to him as wild honey and Edward devoured him without hesitation; lacking any real skill or technique, he simply licked and suckled and caressed, relishing in the wet slide, the heat, the sharp, musky tang filling his mouth. Glancing up through his eyelashes, Edward watched the steward come undone: watched him whimper and thrash, one hand scrabbling for purchase against the bunk wall as he fought to restrain himself from thrusting up into Edward’s throat. 

“Edward--"

The strangled murmur of his name was all the warning Edward got before Thomas spilled thick over his tongue. He swallowed down every drop, any unpleasantness in the act more than made up for by the thrill of bringing Thomas to release. Glancing up again, he saw that the steward was biting down on the side of his hand to keep from crying out, his head thrown back in a paroxysm of ecstasy. That he had caused the sensation was almost incomprehensible to Edward, as impossible as it was exhilarating, and it shot like fire to his own arousal, miserably hard and chafing against the rough blanket beneath them.

Pulling himself up to eye level with Thomas, Edward gazed down at his lover, the sight twisting his heart. Flushed face glistening with sweat, lips parted and swollen with the desperate pressure of their kisses, Thomas was a vision of erotic beauty, the Cupid or Apollo of some Romantic poet’s shameless fantasy. Returning Edward’s stare, his sea-foam eyes shimmered with the heat of his pleasure, pupils blown wide with excitement and unsated need. Curving one hand around Edward’s neck, Thomas pulled him down and lapped at his lips with a warm, slick tongue. The soft humming sound he made when he tasted himself there made Edward yet harder, and still nestled in the embrace of Thomas’s thighs, he began to rub his swollen cock against the steward’s belly, the friction of that slight movement sending shockwaves through his every extremity.

“No.” 

Thomas shook his head, wisps of black hair shaken loose by the movement, falling back from where they’d been plastered by sweat to his brow. “Let me.” One hand slid, fumbling, down Edward’s side, coming down between their bodies, and Edward lifted himself just enough to allow Thomas to take him in hand. The first brush of Thomas’s fingers, his strong wrist, forced a moan past Edward’s lips, and he pushed into the steward’s warm grasp, feeling as if he might explode with the sweet, torturous pressure of his arousal. Holding Edward’s gaze, Thomas tugged at him, the dual caress of his palm and belly making Edward shudder with the effort of holding back his release. 

Gasping for breath between each sucking nip at Edward’s lips and jaw, Thomas stroked with a pumping motion, squeezing ever so slightly each time he reached the head and forcing a mewl from Edward’s mouth. “Inside me,” Thomas murmured, the fierceness of his turquoise stare nearly making Edward spill there and then. “Edward, please…”

“Are you sure?” He could barely give voice to the question: every nerve in his body was raw, sizzling like a lit fuse. Thomas threw his head back, a breathless whine of frustration escaping his lips like a hiss.

“Yes! God, yes, Edward. Fill me. Please…”

Trembling with the effort of keeping himself under control, Edward felt relief poised above him, ready to wash him like a cool wave. He leaned up on his knees and spat into his palm, then worked the moisture up and down his manhood; the slippery slide of his hand nearly made him sob. As he watched, Thomas spread his legs wide and angled his hips, a lewd invitation that Edward accepted with a helpless groan, falling back down upon the steward, mouthing hot at his gaping lips. With the last of his self-discipline, he tried to move steady and slow, easing his way past the barrier of muscles guarding entry to the lush heat of Thomas’s body. But his lover was impatient. Locking his ankles behind Edward’s arse, Thomas pulled him forward, faster, whimpering as Edward sheathed himself fully in that tight, silky flesh. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind Edward felt a flicker of fear that he’d hurt Thomas, but it was drowned immediately by the white hot stab of lust loosed by that helpless whimper: a primal, animal thrill of cruel need that instantly set him thrusting. The half smile that curved Thomas’s lips as they fell into a syncopated rhythm, the breathless little moans he panted against Edward’s throat and cheek, relieved any lingering trepidation, and Edward let himself loose. Matching his pace to the desperate grip of Thomas’s hands on his back, the insistent tightening of his thighs, Edward rocked into his lover, heedless of anything but the miraculous way their bodies fit together, the pounding, roiling, cresting tide of pleasure carrying him headlong towards bliss. Diving deeper and deeper into Thomas, drowning in him, Edward cried out as loudly as he dared: a mere moan against the steward’s ear that sounded, in Edward’s head, like the repercussion of a twenty-pounder. Thomas’s fingers swept hard through his hair, down his back, and his body tightened around Edward’s throbbing cock like a reef knot pulled to. With one loud, strained exhalation, Edward succumbed, spilling and spilling: his seed, his breath, his very life force seeming to flow out into his lover, who curled around him and held him fast, whispering his name over and over again like an incantation.

Time seemed to stop, as frozen in its progress as the ship in its bed of ice. Edward kept his eyes squeezed shut, his face buried against the side of Thomas’s neck, the steward’s sweet scent heavy in his nostrils. He wanted to remain thus, floating suspended in a sea of warm, blissful relief, but the urge to kiss Thomas again, to start the whole dance anew, was too powerful, and he lifted his head to meet the steward’s mouth with his own.

“Wasn’t that better?” Thomas whispered against his lips. “Not a single drop spilled on your beautiful coat.”

“Hang my coat,” Edward growled. “I’d spread it out and have you on top of it.”

“I wouldn’t envy Gibson his washing duties after that.” Grinning, Thomas smoothed the hair gently back from Edward’s brow, then disentangled himself long enough to sit up and shrug out of the garment. Laying it aside on the desk, he turned back to Edward, snuggling down and resting his head upon the lieutenant’s chest. 

“It gets better every time, ” Edward murmured, carding his fingers softly through Thomas’s hair.

“I know.”

“And harder to go without.”

Thomas nodded as best he could with his cheek pressed to Edward’s pectoral. “Yes.”

“I want you constantly. If I couldn’t have you I believe I’d die.”

“Don’t say that.” Thomas caressed Edward’s chest gently, his fingertips lingering on a nipple, the ridge of a rib. “Don’t speak of death. I want us to live together in a place without death, without fear. Somewhere it can be like this all the time. Warm and sweet.” He pulled himself up to brush Edward’s lips with his own: once, twice, a dozen times. Then he grinned.

“What? What’s that wicked smile about?”

“I’m eager to see my portrait.” Cheeks dimpled, eyes dancing with merriment, Thomas rolled over and swung his legs off the bunk. Edward leaned up on his elbow to gaze admiringly at the steward’s naked body as he stood to grab the sketchbook from the desk, then turned to climb back into the warmth at Edward’s side.

Clear-eyed at last, Edward took one glance at the shaky pencil lines and poor proportions and groaned with embarrassment. Thomas just laughed.

“Well, it’s not your best work. But I forgive you.” Still smirking, he turned his head and captured Edward’s mouth again. “After all, you did your best work a few minutes ago.”

Shaking his head, Edward edged some of his weight over upon Thomas, pressing him down against the mattress. “You shouldn’t assume that, Mr. Jopson. It’s early hours yet.”


End file.
